Cheap Fun Under the Rising Sun

Ten Japanese sports cars you can own for $5,000-and less

Cheap Fun Under the Rising Sun from Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car

In the five decades they've been on our shores, Japanese car makers have taken a lot of guff for building boring cars. Not from us, though. We know that sporty cars have been in the Japanese makeup nearly as long as they've been in America; one need only see the early Datsun Fairlady roadsters (and soon the 1500 and 1600 Sports models) to see that. Performance models have waxed and waned in the years since, but the older Japanese car's reputation as a mere commodity, a soulless transportation device, still faces an uphill battle. Increasingly, this is hard to fathom: To our minds, a Datsun 510 has as much soul in it as an Alfa. Both are old, eccentric in their own ways, and utterly charming. Country of origin plays no part.

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There are plenty of points of interest dotted around the old-car landscape. The trick is finding them: Many have been driven beyond salvation, and their low entry price means that big-dollar restorations won't make any financial sense. The good news is, beyond trim and cosmetic items, Japanese cars tend to be reliable enough that you won't need to spend a ton of cash to fix them up after purchase.
Obviously, one-owner and ultra-low-mileage examples are going to cost a bunch more; we're assuming everything here is around 100,000 miles--just breaking in, for most Japanese engines. Also, if you live in the rust belt, shop carefully: The Japanese didn't get a good handle on rust prevention until the mid-'80s.
We've chosen 10 Japanese performance faves from across the latter half of the 20th century--all of which can be had for a couple of mortgage payments.
1988-'92 Honda CRX Si
The second-generation Honda CRXs, even the economy models, were built to be sporty: Fully-independent wishbone suspension front and rear allowed proverbial go-kart-like handling. They were bigger inside, but still barely topped the one-ton mark. The Si (for Sports injected) added a fuel-injected, 105-108hp 1.6-liter--which was so smooth and eager to rev that complaints about low power were non-existent--and other sporting accoutrements like 14-inch alloy wheels. The press couldn't get enough: it was Motor Trend's Import Car of the Year in 1988, was named to Car and Driver's Ten Best list that same season, and was named one of Road & Track's 10 Best Cars of all time. Tuner kids and bargain-basement autocrossers mean that there are fewer good examples all the time, but $3,500 should afford you the best stock Si in country. And it'll run forever.
1978-'84 Mazda RX-7
Mazda was famous for its high-revving rotary engines throughout the '70s, but these were always installed in family cars. The RX-7 was launched just as enthusiast griping about the still-sporting 280Z turning into the personal-luxury 280ZX reached its peak. Mazda's two-seat RX-7 weighed 2,600 pounds, had 50/50 weight distribution, and a 100hp 12A engine; initial demand was so great that dealers were selling them for thousands over sticker. Later GSL-SE models offered leather interiors and a fuel-injected 13B engine producing 135hp--we've seen at least half a dozen babied examples just in our area, few of which could top the $5,000 barrier, so there are doubtless more out there. And with more than 377,000 produced for the States alone, an early RX-7 should be both good fun and a good buy.
1990-'96 Mazda Miata
Can it really be 20 years since Mazda revived a million British sports-car fantasies with its cheeky Miata? It combined all of the warm memories of top-down motoring, short-wheelbase hand-
ling and engine-revving acceleration while eschewing the unreliability, drafty tops, fluid leaks and electrical glitches that helped drive a stake in the heart of the British motor industry. They're not the fastest things on this list, and they've gotten the reputation of being a hairdresser's car, but they're still enormous fun at street-legal speeds--and when the weather is right, nothing compares with the wind in your hair and the sun on your face. Mazda sold a shedload of them, too. You may have to forgo the later leather-clad M editions, but if you can't find a quality one-owner example for under $5,000, you're looking in the wrong places.
1984-'89 Toyota MR2
Toyota had amassed a fairly conservative reputation by the mid-'80s, so something as overtly sporting as the mid-engined MR2 was something of a surprise. Naturally aspirated models received the fuel-injected, all-aluminum 1.6-liter DOHC twin-cam four, called 4A-GE, and rated at 112 horsepower; model year 1987 introduced a supercharged version of that engine, producing 145 horsepower. Not bad for a 2,400-pound machine in those days--and enough for Motor Trend to name it Import Car of the Year for 1985. Though plenty popular, and a hit with the SCCA and autocross circuits, the early cars are strangely uncoveted by the hop-up crowd, who prefer the '90s-style. Clean, early, naturally aspirated MR2s are $3,000 propositions, if that, with clean, stock supercharged versions resting near our self-imposed $5,000 cap.
1976-'77 Toyota Celica Liftback
The Celica is more sporty car than sports car, but it's still significant--and cheap. Motor Trend's 1976 Import Car of the Year sold more than a quarter-million units in just two years, thanks in large part to the versatile new liftback body style. Early handling quirks had been sorted out, performance was sprightly--particularly with the available five-speed stick. It looked and went like the baby Mustang that it was popularly pegged as--and the 90hp 22R engine was willing to take whatever abuse was hurled upon it. Most rotted away, died of neglect or were just scrapped; today, clean early examples are tough to find--but still won't break the bank. Any number of JDM-style suspension and engine upgrades are available; the $3,500 you should pay for a respectable driver-quality car will leave plenty of extra cash to help realize its potential.
1987-'89 Isuzu Impulse Turbo
Most agreed that the Giugiaro-penned Piazza/Impulse was a beauty, but fewer were pleased with its GM T-car (Chevette/Gemini) underpinnings. A 147hp Turbo model launched in 1985, but the best sorted of the lot were the '87-up models. Isuzu turned to Lotus--both owned by GM in those days--and the results were both minimal and profound: The basic front wishbones and five-link solid rear axle were left alone, but Lotus lowered it half an inch, increased the rear anti-roll bar diameter, fit special dampers and Goodyear rubber, and stiffened the rear springs. Isuzu added bigger brakes and the Handling by Lotus badges. The NADA Price Guide says that top dollar for one of these is $2,600; not bad for something with the Lotus name on it.
1981-'83 Datsun 280ZX Turbo
Datsun's 280ZX, launched in 1979, was increasingly lavished with the creature comforts that American customers apparently demanded. Sales increased, but with options like air conditioning and T-tops, plus a boulevard-oriented ride, enthusiasts griped that Datsun had forsaken their roots and gone soft. Enter the 1981 280ZX Turbo: With 180hp from its 2.8-liter straight-six, it was the quickest Japanese car in the States at that time. Starting in 1982, power-assisted rack-and-pinion steering was standard, and the rear suspension was tweaked for better handling. A Borg-Warner T-5 manual transmission, the first non-Japanese transmission in a Japanese car, was employed to handle the power. Excluding super-low-mileage examples, the best stock 280ZX Turbo in the nation should run around $4,000.
1986.5-1992 Toyota Supra
We understand that we're moving into the realm of GT car by naming the Mk III Supra, but this generation Supra gets lost in the shadow of its newer brethren. Older ones are findable for well under our price limit too, but the Mk III (the first generation to be completely separate from the now-front-drive Celica) came with a choice of naturally aspirated DOHC straight-six offering 200hp or a turbo variant with 230hp. The Supra Turbo's power topped the 300ZX Turbo and the RX-7 Turbo of the era. More power for the same money? Sign us up. Leather and power options were widely available, but so were automatic transmissions, so shop wisely. You're looking at $4,000 for a higher-mileage, adult-owned original, with a small premium for the Turbo model.
1991-'93 Nissan NX2000
Built on a shortened Sentra platform and meant to replace both the "Transformers"-generation Pulsar NX and the Sentra hatchback in the U.S., the NX2000 garnered plenty of enthusiast attention: It packed 140hp worth of all-aluminum, 7,500-RPM-redline Nissan SR20DE (same as in the vaunted Sentra SE-R) into the nose, sported 14-inch alloys fronting four-wheel disc brakes (with optional ABS), and could run mid-15-second quarter-mile times. The steering was heavy, but handling was neutral--a far cry from the massive understeer usually incurred by front-drivers--and the NX2000 won both multiple national SCCA wins in 1992 and was an Automobile magazine All-Star. But Nissan was entering one of its periodic sales slumps, and after its mid-1991 launch as a 1992 model, importation ceased in 1993. As a result, it's remembered by Nissan diehards and few others. Today, a clean five-speed shouldn't run more than $3,000.
1990-'99 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX/Eagle Talon TSi AWD
Quick in a straight line, fast in corners, built in America, unavailable in Japan, and sold as a Mitsubishi and "captive import" Eagle, the all-wheel-drive Diamond-Star pair are baby Quattros: 195hp worth of turbocharged power on tap (210 from 1995 up), the steadying control of all-wheel drive to harness it, and the relative bargain of a $20,000 sticker. Multiple-time Car and Driver Ten Best winners, their big power and bargain-basement second-hand values (thanks in part to a most un-Japanese fragile electronics reputation) mean that plenty were snapped up by the tuner brigade, patched together on allowance money and blown to smithereens; if you find a clean, stock, running GSX or Talon, a 1G (up to 1995) shouldn't run more than $2,500; the 2G models (through 1999) should be available for no more than $4,000. They also respond well to modification.

This article originally appeared in the June, 2009 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car.